ill-spending property

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ يُنفِقُونَ أَمْوَالَهُمْ لِيَصُدُّواْ عَن سَبِيلِ اللّهِ فَسَيُنفِقُونَهَا ثُمَّ تَكُونُ عَلَيْهِمْ حَسْرَةً ثُمَّ يُغْلَبُونَ وَالَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ إِلَى جَهَنَّمَ يُحْشَرُونَ

Behold, those who cover up are spending their properties in order to turn away from the path of God; and they will go on spending them until they become a regret for them; and then they are overcome! And those who covered up, are gathered unto hell

Have you seen this? Do you witness this sign in the world? How else would you be sure it is truth for your Lord? How will it guide you if you did not witness that it is true?

Do you assume that you know who “those who cover up” are? Do you not expect your maker to describe this concept to you in a way that you can witness its truth?

To me, the first part of the verse describes what the speaker means by those who cover up. Their covering up has something to do with “spending” their “amwal/property”. Do you think property is just money or wealth? Is that more valuable than life? love? the ability to understand, speak, talk? Would you not give away all your “money” if you could life or love with it? My property is what I value as a human being. I use these valuables in my possession (not of my making). I live with life given to me. I see with vision given to me. and so on.

The verse claims that “the covering up” is in covering up [in my consciousness] the giver and source to which these valuables point and lead. The “path/sabeel” to the Living One is opened by the life I have when this life is spent/lived in His name. When I breathe and see NOT the air or lungs or some natural law giving me life but I see receiving life from the Living One, the One who is able to create life from dead things (air, lung cells, blood etc). Each moment of life spent living is spent in the path of God – as leading to God as the Living, the Compassionate [life is life and it is also a mercy for me. I love having it]. As I “spend” life in His name, i find myself connected to the Living One and hence more with life. My spending of life increases me in life. My spending is increase and a matter of joy.

The verse speaks of the one who covers up as the one who spends and turns away from the path of God. I see life as NOT leading me to the Living One when i see it as just my life or just life itself with no owner or creator, no Living One from whom it must issue and to whom it must belong eternally. When i spend my life as just that – my life – and refuse to see that it is pointing to the giver of Life, the Living One, i spend it and slowly and gradually lose it. It decreases and decreases as I spend it until the moment arrives that I am in utter despair of having lost it irrecoverably. it is gone! such a valuable thing, gone! water under the bridge! never to return (in my view when i refused to live/spend it in the path leading to God as the Living One).

Where do I find myself? in total deprivation of what i value. I find myself experiencing a total and utter loss. I confront non-existence and total insignificance. What was beautiful and valuable and “mine” (life in this case) is gone! its going to be gone! life spent is life lost. I witness this in my world here. To find myself deprived of life as I spend it when I could have found myself with the Living One as I spent it is a matter of great distress for me. I can feel this and see this. I can see the truth of this. And so i tell myself, do not choose to spend life while turning away from the path that it opens to the Living One. Live (spend life) in His name and connect yourself with the Living One. Or else choose to spend it in the name of life itself or your name and turn away from the path to God, the Living One and find yourself in loss and despair. The choice is mine. What an irony that if I turn away from the Living One, i am “gathered” (as if coming together with something or someone) unto a place of utter loss and deprivation! I am brought together with deprivation and suffering. No indifference to loss is possible here, which is a sign that there is no reality to an indifferent, suffering-less non-existence. There is no peaceful non-being. I find no evidence for this, only a vain and baseless optimism that such would be the case.

I ask my Lord, my God, my maker to then help me spend in His path, spend all my properties which He gives to me for my benefit (love, life, compassion, intelligence, wisdom and so on) in His path and so i see Him as the source of Compassion, Wisdom, Intelligence). In being with the Loving, Compassionate One, I am brought together with safety and security in Him. Help me my Lord!